What's Here

Course Transformation Outside CSU

NCAT Approach

Our Transforming Course Design approach shares many features with
the Academic Transformation model developed by Carol Twigg and
colleagues through the National Center for Academic Transformation's national projects to redesign instruction at colleges and universities with effective uses of online resources and activities.

The following features characterize the NCAT approach:

The use of technology to refashion the course activities
according to several models, the most frequent choice being a hybrid
model in which some traditional course activities are replaced by
online activities or resources. Other models for using technology
include augmenting traditional activities with remedial or supplemental
online elements, designing new learning spaces for online work with
on-site support, and combinations of all of these which allow
individual students to choose which approaches best fit their needs.

The
most successful courses maximize student engagement, emphasize active
learning and use technology to enable increased amounts of high-quality
contact between faculty and students.

The successful courses
achieve these outcomes by increasing the amount of material made
available online; using online quizzing and feedback mechanisms; making
use of discipline-based computer laboratories; providing flexibility in
course options; and maximizing student access to course help, either
from an instructor or an undergraduate teaching assistant.

To be successful, this approach requires high levels of departmental
commitment, a baseline level of academic technology infrastructure and
technology, adequate faculty development support, and a model for
assessing and evaluating outcomes.

Our approach also shares common elements with a number of other
related initiatives in higher education, including the following: